A Year After Dousing, Republicans’ Hope Rekindled

WASHINGTON — The Republican victories in the races for New Jersey and Virginia governors put the party in a stronger position to turn back the political wave President Obama unleashed last year, setting the stage for Republicans to raise money, recruit candidates and ride the excitement of an energized base as the party heads into next year’s midterm elections.

But a Democratic victory in an upstate New York Congressional district — after an ideologically pitched battle between moderates and conservatives over how best to lead Republicans back to power — signaled that the Republican Party faces continued upheaval. The Democratic victory came over a conservative candidate who, with the enthusiastic backing of national conservative leaders and well-financed grass-roots organizations, had forced out a Republican candidate who supported abortion rights and gay rights.

The results in the New Jersey and Virginia races underscored the difficulties Mr. Obama is having transforming his historic victory a year ago into either a sustained electoral advantage for Democrats or a commanding ideological position over conservatives in legislative battles.

The coalition that swept him into the White House was absent on Tuesday night, with evidence that the young, African-American and first-time voters who supported Mr. Obama failed to turn out to help the Democrats Mr. Obama had campaigned for: Gov. Jon S. Corzine in New Jersey and R. Creigh Deeds in Virginia. (There are no exit polls in the upstate Congressional race to provide demographic information on the electoral outcome.)

Independent voters who had flocked to Mr. Obama in Virginia and New Jersey last year shifted on Tuesday to the Republican candidates in both states, Christopher J. Christie in New Jersey and Robert F. McDonnell in Virginia, according to exit polls in both states. That is a swing that will certainly be noted by moderate Congressional Democrats facing re-election next year, who may now be more reluctant to support Mr. Obama on tough votes in Congress.

Still, even as Republicans celebrated their first wisp of good news in more than a year, they confronted results likely to fuel a continuation of the arguments that have torn the party with increased intensity in recent days.

That upstate race drew national attention after conservatives pushed aside the Republican Party and rallied around their preferred candidate, Douglas L. Hoffman on the Conservative Party ticket, asserting that the party should back only fervent conservatives, rather than accept candidates who veered from party dogma on issues like abortion and financial restraint.

“Conservatives can win when they emphasize the right things and don’t allow their message to get co-opted,” said Saul Anuzis, a former chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. “The Democrats and some of their friends in the media attempt to paint all conservatives as fire-breathing cavemen.”

The victory of the Democratic candidate, Bill Owens, over Mr. Hoffman clearly surprised Republican leaders and offered one bit of good news to the White House, which put a last-minute effort into trying to ensure a Democratic victory there.

“If there is a big backlash against Democrats, why did we just pick up a Democrat in a district that hasn’t elected a Democrat in 150 years?” asked David Axelrod, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “The real story here is, I think this thing is ambiguous. Yes, Democrats lost in New Jersey and Virginia, but if you look at those races, the factors were locals.”

In those two states, which, in their size and diversity, might offer a better testing ground for a party looking for new approaches, Mr. Christie and Mr. McDonnell won after decidedly playing down their conservative views on social issues. Their relentless focus on jobs and the economy — voters in both states listed those as their top issues in exit polls —appeared to blunt the effort of Democrats to undercut the candidates by pointing to their history of conservatism on social issues.

That was particularly the case with Mr. McDonnell, whose long-established conservative record on issues like abortion and gay rights apparently gave him enough leeway with conservative voters to avoid any engagement on these issues.

“He focused on the issues that are on people’s minds: jobs, taxes,” said Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi, the head of the Republican Governors Association. “I don’t think there are a lot of governors who are more conservative than I am. But I try to run campaigns on what people are interested in.”

The Republican candidate in the New York race, Dede Scozzafava, suspended her campaign over the weekend, pointing to diminishing contributions and polls suggesting she was heading to a defeat. Within an hour, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, who had strongly backed Ms. Scozzafava, announced his support for Mr. Hoffman.

The critical question after this setback is whether the conservative groups who had clearly signaled that they intended to press their advantage and challenge other Republican candidates they considered too moderate would now have the impetus or support to continue down that road.

The immediate focus of those potential challenges is in Florida, where Gov. Charlie Crist is facing a primary challenge from the right in a race for a United States Senate seat, and Illinois, where Representative Mark Steven Kirk is considering running for Senate. When Chris Chocola, the president of Club for Growth, a group that advocates conservative economic policies, was asked on ABC News if Mr. Kirk was the kind of candidate his group could support in a primary, he responded, “Probably not.”

The results suggested the limits of the political influence of Mr. Obama, who campaigned intensively for Mr. Corzine and reluctantly for Mr. Deeds. Mr. Obama remains popular at least in New Jersey, the exit polls showed, but that did not do much good for the state’s soon-to-be-former governor. That is not the kind of lesson a president wants as he heads into tough battles on issues like health care and climate control.

For Republicans, the results on Tuesday were welcome news after one of the party’s toughest years. But the victories occurred on a relatively small playing ground. And in an off-year election, far fewer voters turn out than in a general election.

The results will certainly lift the Republican Party for some period. Yet history suggests they will not necessarily predict what will happen in the far more consequential races next year, when 39 governors’ seats, 38 Senate seats and the entire House is up for re-election.

Indeed, Mr. Axelrod acknowledged that Mr. Obama’s supporters had not shown up in New Jersey and Virginia, but he said he did not believe that meant the end of the Obama coalition.

“That doesn’t mean they won’t come out for us,” he said. “I think they’ll come out for national races. But this wasn’t a national race.”

A version of this news analysis appears in print on November 4, 2009, on page A21 of the New York edition with the headline: A Year After Dousing, Republicans’ Hope Is Rekindled. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe